Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Hawaii public school teachers would see multiyear pay raises totaling nearly 14 percent under a tentative four-year contract deal reached with the state today.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association’s board of directors unanimously voted to recommend the proposal to its 13,500 members for ratification next week.

The pay raises — which HSTA says would amount to 13.6 percent — include a combination of pay grade step increases and across-the-board 3.5 percent raises in alternating years.

The average annual salary for a 10-month teacher for the current school year is $58,959, according to the Department of Education.

“I am pleased that after nine months of negotiations, the state and the HSTA have reached a tentative agreement on a contract that will benefit Hawaii’s teachers and their students. … This raise will help stabilize the teaching force, which we know will improve teaching and learning conditions,” HSTA President Corey Rosenlee said in a statement issued Saturday night. “This package is the best we could do for our teachers, in spite of the state’s difficult fiscal outlook.”

Under the deal, Rosenlee said, the state also would increase its share of health insurance premiums. Currently the cost split varies among plans for teachers, but under the most popular health plan, the state covers 59 percent of the premium.

Rosenlee added that the tentative deal allows for HSTA to renegotiate health plan contributions and professional development in years three and four of the contract.

The proposed deal is significantly higher than what state negotiators had proposed in earlier rounds of contract talks. The state had offered teachers annual 1 percent lump-sum bonuses that would have been paid out in October of this year and next year.

The union had balked at the earlier offer, which would not have amounted to a raise because the bonuses wouldn’t be rolled into teachers’ base pay. HSTA said at the time that the average bonus would have been approximately $500.

Rosenlee credited Gov. David Ige’s involvement in negotiations for the more generous offer.

“The governor really worked hard to make this contract happen,” Rosenlee said in a phone interview Saturday. “He was working with us late at night and I think it really showed that education is a big priority to him.”

By comparison, under HSTA’s existing 2013-17 contract, the union secured annual raises of at least 3 percent, with alternating step-ups and 3.2 percent across-the-board raises. The union used what’s known as a re-opener clause to negotiate additional compensation for the final two years of that contact, including a one-time $2,000 bonus and a 1.8 percent raise that will kick in June 30, when the contract expires.

If a simple majority of teachers — 50 percent plus one vote — who vote on the proposed contract Thursday approve the agreement, the contract will begin July 1. A successful ratification vote would allow for the Legislature to fund the settlement by its April 28 fiscal deadline.
=====

We have found that putting a
stake in the heart of a charter school is tougher than killing off
Dracula. While the UFT dilly dallies over what to do about JHS 145 whose
closing this June was announced at the March PEP meeting, charters that
are closed resist.

The charter is making many of the same arguments JHS 145 and other schools being closed made. See more on the JHS 145 story

Charter School Marked for Closure Can Still Host Enrollment Lottery: Judge

By Dartunorro ClarkHARLEM
— A judge is allowing a charter school that serves students with
learning disabilities to move ahead with its enrollment lottery, after
the school sued the city in response to its decision to shutter the
charter due to poor performance.

CPE1 Parents in shock at Apr 24 UFT Ex Bd as Unity refuses to take reso of support off the table.

In his brief report, Michael Mulgrew promised action on CPE1. We'll wait and see -- the UFT refuses to publicly call for Garg's removal despite the massive accumulation of evidence. Even her own CSA seems to be raising issues -- a rep asked Farina to publicly defend Garg with reasons and all she said was that there was another side. (Some of the real reasons for resisting were laid out in my post last night that personal pique may be playing a role -- Deb Meier, Jane Andrias, Two Former CPE1 Principals Question Farina/DOE on Intentional Destruction.

The UFT Exec Bd meetings, moribund for so many years, have turned into high drama at times this year as MORE/New Action have teamed with various groups to bring their grievances directly to the UFT Ex Bd meetings, often using a combo of the pre-meeting speaking time for non-EB members and the question and motion period by the MORE/NA high school reps.

Last night was another remarkable event, made so by the largest group of parents yet to show up --- as Arthur wrote after the MORE meeting on Saturday - "I have sat with some of the most intelligent and persuasive people I've
ever met, and I'm persuaded that this school was created with a mission
that's being perverted by its current leadership." Amen.

As a skeptic about the worth of winning these EB seats - after all, you are speaking to Unity Caucus - I must say that the MORE/New Action reps have made these meetings worth attending again. Real debate has taken place, which you don't see at Delegate Assemblies. And the leadership has been responding, sometimes in positive ways. Our crew pre-meeting an hour before the EB meeting gets everyone ready - these pre-meetings are open to anyone and there is lots of back and forth.

A key has been Arthur Goldstein's blogging full minutes of the meetings, often within hours, the first time where an open airing is taking place. (This is tedious work and kudoos to Arthur -- I once tried to do it and gave up.)

Another aspect has been doing what ICE began to do a decade ago -- bring various constituencies to these meetings -- sign up for speaking time and have our people ask pertinent questions or bring up resos -- all turned down, severely modified or tabled by the leadership --- see Arthur's great blog post: Contrary where he points out that our people have supported almost all Unity resos while they automatically turn down ours -- sort of like the Republicans saying they won't give Obama any victories.

But nothing has galvanized these recent meetings until large numbers of CPE 1 parents began to show up, some with very young children. Now let's say right out that they have been treated with the utmost respect and courtesy by union leaders. The other angle has been bringing current and former CPE1 teachers to sign up for the 10 minute pre-meeting speaking time (parents as non-UFT members don't get to speak). In fact, UFT Secretary Howie Schoor who chairs the meeting gave people 18 minutes to speak yesterday. Howie has shown a lot of sensitivity and flexibility. EB meetings have (mostly) remained civil.

I believe the fact that Mulgrew only shows up to give his report and then leaves has made these meetings more civil. But in response to the CPE1 parents and teachers yesterday, Mulgrew spent some time chatting with them before and after his report. Whether he will take action is up in the air but they were very happy to have some conversations with him. After the meeting Leroy Barr remained to talk to them for some time.

A group of current and former CPE1 parents spoke before the meeting last night and were very effective.

But one of the most unusual was a speech by a teacher from another school who worked under Garg when she was an assistant principal at Pan American HS and repeated a list of admin atrocities. She told me she has proof of every one and I hope to publish some of them. She told me she never speaks in public but once she heard stories about Garg as principal of CPE1 she felt she had to speak out. She had never expected Garg would rise to the level of principal. Before reading what Garg has been doing, she assumed Garg's actions were based on following orders by the horrible Pan American HS principal Minerva Zanca, who by the way is still working in the DOE as a guidance counselor. She said she had to speak out to stop people like Garg.

By the way, at the SLT meeting, Garg said she worked for great Principals and learned a lot -- from Zanca she sure learned how to play the race card and divide people.

Does Farina hate Deb Meier for her success and national and international recognition over the same time period Farina was an active educator and yet Farina never received similar accolades?

Or is it just that Farina can't stand the idea of democratic governance of a school? Then we hear that Farina knows full well how awful Monika Garg is but hates the parent activists so much she believes they (and their kids) must not be allowed to get away with winning this and must be punished. After all, what if other parent groups spring up?

Even if Farina goes out on a legacy of forcing most of the parents out of CPE1 and turns it into a charter clone, those parents who remain in the public school system at other schools around the city may just bring their level of activism along with them.

Unless the unstated intent of the recent failure to end the turmoil of these past few years has been to close CPE1 so the space could be used for other purposes, it’s clear that we now face a choice between either replacing the principal or replacing the students, families and the school’s mission. ... Jane Andrias, Deb Meier, former Principals of CPE 1

Unless you understand the unique culture of democratic decision-making at CPE1 over 40 years, the attack on the school by Farina and henchcrew seems to fall into the usual DOE attempts to drive out vet teachers. But there is something different going on here - it is the style of education at the school that is under attack. And maybe something personal.

Deborah Meier has been having difficulty with her vision and is now dependent on voice activated devices for reading and writing. As a result an earlierresponse to the blog was incomplete.In early April, Deborah and I wrote a response to Kate Taylor’s article in the NY Times on the conflict at Central Park East 1 (“CPE1”). The letter was not published. Taylor’s article raised many of the right questions confronting the institution but failed to explore why there has been no constructive solution to address the continuing conflicts within the school community and restore the safe and supportive learning environment for children and adults, which had been the hallmark of the school.CPE1 was founded in 1974 as part of an East Harlem initiative to show what could be possible in what was at that time one of the poorest and educationally deprived communities in the city. The then District Superintendent, Anthony Alvarado, invited us to start a small, progressive and democratically governed school. Over the ensuing 30 years the school developed a national and international reputation for success in educating its children while maintaining a democratic culture. Faculty, staff, families and children all felt respected and heard even in times when internal differences or external policy changes challenged the integrity of the school’s core beliefs and highly developed practice. All important decisions were made collectively. One of the most notable features was the relationships that developed among staff, families and children, many of which last to this day. This continued and flourished long after Deborah left the school in 1985 under the leadership of the two principals who succeeded her.While many of the attributes of the school have been threatened over the last decade, a third principal, who was the choice of the school community, succeeded in supporting the school culture and mission until she left to form her new school based on the principles and practices of CPE1.The next principal who followed was also recommended by the school community but was not a strong enough leader to sustain and build on the mission of the school and the school began to erode. Three tenured teachers left the school at the end of her last year. Monika Garg was then appointed as the principal without the input or support of the school community. During the past two years with Ms. Garg as principal, the school’s mission has been totally undermined. Three more tenured teachers and one promising new teacher left the school at the end of last year.A community that was once built on trust, compassion, the power of ideas and democratic process of decision making has become too distracted by controversy to function as a united and safe learning community for children and adults alike. Unless the unstated intent of the recent failure to end the turmoil of these past few years has been to close CPE1 so the space could be used for other purposes, it’s clear that we now face a choice between either replacing the principal or replacing the students, families and the school’s mission. We have made efforts over the past two years to join with the DOE to identify leadership that would build on the foundation of the past and restore the school’s excellent educational and democratic principles and culture. We are disappointed by the resistance of the DOE to take the necessary steps to constructively resolve this unrelenting and destructive conflict at CPE1.Deborah Meier-1974-85-Founding Teacher/ Director, MacCarthur Award WinnerJane Andrias-1981-2003 Art Teacher and Principal

Monday, April 24, 2017

I found this link on the Weekly update from The Great Lakes Center - which is a minefield of ed deform and very highly funded by Betsy DeVos. But I always find interesting stuff in it and here is one worth sharing as it faults Bush, Obama, Gates, etc - now the propaganda arm puts the fault at leftists when in fact it was the left that resisted the most -- see Susan Ohanian and George Schmidt in the 90s. And it was Leonie Haimson, not people on the right, who led the push back against data mining. So do read this with a skeptical eye.

Common Core: A Clandestine Disaster

Review of The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids, by Joy Pullmann (Encounter Books, March 14, 2017), 280 pp.; $24.72 on Amazon.com: ISBN-10: 1594038813, ISBN-13: 978-1594038815

As
part of the ongoing professional development at the school, the
Division of Teaching and Learning will facilitate visits to other
progressive education schools in the coming weeks for Principal Garg and
staff members from the school to support new teaching practices and
collaboration across schools... Laura Feijoo letter to CPE1 parents.

No, Laura, there is nothing to learn from visits to other progressive schools which have progressive principals because CPE1 principal Monika Garg is not and will never be a progressive principal.Progressive principals do not bring up most of the staff on phony charges, do not lie to a parent, claiming the child was sexually molested by a teacher she wanted out because he signed a petition opposing her, etc. etc etc.
Who is Laura Feijoo? The chief Supe of Supes. She holds the leash on the DOE's list of out of control, power hungry superintendents. Feijoo was brought into the school to meet with the parents who spent the night in the auditorium

Garg has spread so much poison in the school there is no way something can be worked out. What the DOE is going is stalling for time -- to hope enough of the parent and teacher activists end up leaving the school so as to tip it to the point where Garg can continue to rule.

Now, what is the role of the UFT here? Not to defend the teachers but to work with the DOE to find a compromise. This will come up at tonight's Ex Bd meeting -- I'll blog more about this later but come on down if you want to be a witness.

One more thing: A bunch of us at the MORE meeting on Saturday sat spellbound as a parent went through the astounding list of stuff Garg and the DOE has done to the school. Bloggers like Arthur Goldstein and Patrick Walsh were there to witness. Arthur has already blogged about it:

Thank
you for the opportunity to meet and discuss how we can best work
together to make CPE I successful as a united community.

To build on the
school’s outlined components that support all students, strong
teaching, and the entire school community, the following outlines
opportunities to reach our shared goals:

I will continue visits to the school with Superintendent Estrella or her designee during this school year.

As
part of the ongoing professional development at the school, the
Division of Teaching and Learning will facilitate visits to other
progressive education schools in the coming weeks for Principal Garg and
staff members from the school to support new teaching practices and
collaboration across schools.

The
Office of Student and Youth Development has arranged support to
students including the School Climate Manager from the Manhattan Field
Support Center (MFSC) will work closely with the school to assess school
climate and culture and address any concerns.

The
Division of Family and Community Engagement (FACE) and the district
office’s parent engagement team will target support to foster
communication and collaboration with families by continuing to assess
the needs of the community and devise a parent engagement plan with
parent leaders to ensure consensus-driven and collaborative
conversations during SLT and PA/PTA monthly meetings that lead to
promising practices for Parent Teacher Conferences, workshops and
40-minute Tuesdays.

FACE
in collaboration with the district parent engagement team will host
focused school walkthroughs with parents and staff to ensure parent
voice is validated as we move towards ‎a more collaborative approach on
instruction and social emotional well-being.

FACE
in collaboration with the district parent engagement will assist in the
monitoring of parent emails/concerns to de-escalate and provide
immediate response/support.

FACE
in collaboration with the district parent engagement will provide
training to parent leaders on Chancellor’s Regulations A-660 and A-655.

In
collaboration with the school leader and teaching staff, the district
office and the Manhattan Field Support Center (MFSC) will continue to
provide instructional support through Pat Warner.

We
thank you for your time and energy to discuss with us your continued
concerns and provide suggestions for how we can move forward together.

I think Mike is too nice to Randi, who is providing cover for DeVos. But I never see Randi as playing a fool's game. She plays everyone else for fools. Her game is all about positioning -- "you see how reasonable and willing we are to deal - read - sell out my members -- What does Randi have to gain? Some feel a piece of the choice action - if you can't beat them join them. Maybe make a few bucks to cover the loss of union members to right to work.

The union's $62M loan for 50 Broadway helps them morph into real estate. Become an agent of teacher training. They failed at the charter school approach but maybe there are other options out there.

A comment on Diane's blog from a Norwegian Filmmaker
gets us closer to the root.

And the ruling class are counting on “right to work” as a way to
capitalize upon union members’ legitimate discontent with their union
leadership and its willingness to compromise for almost 2 decades.

Beware, because this is a perfect storm. These are American unions,
not European ones. I fear that is might be better to have union power
and prominence – albeit horribly corrupt as Weingarten – than to have
mere patches of unionism throughout the workforce.

Which brings me to my own contemplation: Would right to work status
help create newer, better unions though sheer demand and market reactive
forces (ones that would hang Weingarten in public and derive
democratically structured unions) or is it just better to have a closed
shop?

Teacher turnover means nothing to Weingarten, as she gets her union
dues paid no matter who fills the position. Yet union dues keep unions
more than afloat to do what they are supposed to do: fight for
educators, children, and families.

The United States is such an amazing country . . . it shines SO more
brightly than Norway in many aspects. Yet, Weingarten et al are an
example of how deplorable the culture here really can get to be. She’s
not a real union leader, nor is her governance militant, forceful, or
effective. It’s just there to keep her $500,000+/year salary in tact.
She is a master triangulator . . . Either that, or Amerians are not
paying attention to her governence.

Something tells me that this is not my European lens talking here,
but that more than 75% of Americans would agree about the corruption
behind the AFT, NEA, and UFT. I could be wrong.

Alexandra Estrella, the District 4 superintendent, has shown Baiz the door in what is expected, by most educators who know both Global Tech and the district, to mark the beginning of the end for the school. Last week, the staff sat stunned and teary-eyed, when Baiz announced at the weekly staff meeting that he would not be returning after spring break.... Global Tech may turn out to be among the first Bloomberg-era
small schools to be dismantled by the de Blasio-Farina administration.
Those close to the school see Global Tech as a victim of an expanding
bureaucracy where “who you know matters more than what you know.”...........Andrea Gabor, Gotham Gazette

David Baiz, the award-winning teacher who was handpicked by Global Tech’s founding principal to become her successor.

Do you see a pattern here, a pattern to put in closer principals with a blueprint to drive out veteran teachers -- a pattern the UFT refuses to acknowledge?

Despite the turmoil, several teachers at the school, which is also
known for low teacher turnover—not a single teacher left last year—are
clearly reluctant to leave. ... Several other teachers, though, are updating their resumes. Thanks to
Estrella’s decision to push Baiz out early, they have the entire
upcoming so-called open-market period to look for new jobs within the
department.

Yes, Virginia, Estrella is the very same Supt. who supports CPE1 Prinipal Monika Garg, branded the worst principal in NYC, but has inserted herself into Global Tech to bring in yet another one of her buddies as principal.

....it turns out that she is moving one of her lieutenants,
Ellen Johnson Torres, a teacher evaluation and development coach, into
the job temporarily—another sign, education sources say, that the school
will be merged with P.S. 7.

Global Tech also traces its lineage to the era of
collaboration and teacher-leaders that flourished in District 4 under
Tony Alvarado and Debbie Meier, beginning in the 1970s, and was, to a
limited degree, revived under Bloomberg. That legacy of grassroots leadership and collaboration, which was
intended to foster creativity and innovation, is now widely seen as
endangered—not just at Global Tech, but throughout the city.

Yes, can we say that DeB/Farina rule is as bad or worse than Bloomberg/Klein? Well, not to the UFT/Unity leadership which has its seat at the table that BloomKlein denied it, but certainly not using it to defend teachers and schools. (Nothing new here: Remember when the DOE under Klein refused to appoint the principal of Bronx High School of Science and put in the awful Valerie Reidy who then hired the equally awful Rosemarie Jahoda of Townsend HS fame?)

It is clear that mayoral control, which the UFT supports, must be gone.

Global Tech has known for nearly two years that its days might
be numbered. Soon after Baiz become principal, in 2013, he learned that
the superintendent was considering merging Global Tech, which has never
had more than about 175 students, with P.S. 7, the K-8 school that
shares its building. Russell and other friends of Global Tech within the
education department urged Baiz to fight for the school; in what proved
a short-lived victory, the principal of P.S. 7 moved to a job at DOE
headquarters, and Estrella tapped Pryce-Harvey, Global Tech’s assistant
principal and Baiz’s friend, to be the interim-acting principal.

Andrea Gabor gets to the crust of what is happening all over the city as the supposedly progressive de Blasio and his agent Farina, makes war on schools where teachers and parents have played a major role.

last summer, Baiz learned that Estrella had turned down his
tenure application; under education department rules, there was a good
chance that he would lose his principalship. A few months later she
overruled his tenure recommendation for a respected Global Tech
teacher—a Math for America master teacher for science who also holds a
special-education certification.
Getting rid of Baiz appears to be a first step in consolidating the
two schools in the East 120th Street building they share, under a
principal hand-picked by Estrella. Pryce-Harvey will retire from P.S. 7
this year; her successor has already been chosen.

Friday, April 21, 2017

My theme for today is: The UFT being allies with CSA is like USA being allies with ISIS. James Eterno writes:

The UFT will claim their behind the scenes strategy worked here. Let's
hope this is not just an exception. It took an enormous effort just not
to have one disastrous interim acting principal appointed permanently.

In fact it was the students who led the action.

But oh the distortions coming from the UFT leaders -- I'm too kind to call them outright lies -- but when I heard Manhattan borough rep Dwayne Clark get up at an ex bd meeting and defend the actions of District 4 rep in the CPE1 situation I almost spit up my Philly cheese steak sandwich - (well actually I was already in the process of doing so anyway - which is why some of us are eating BEFORE the Ex Bd meeting.)

Clark defended the district rep and uft reaction and there should be push back. When Peter and I met with with CPE1 people over a year ago a major complaint was UFT seeming to side with admin. I mean why else ask MORE to meet other than UFT wasn't helping? That it took you guys showing up a year and a half later is a sign of dysfunction in the UFT- maybe intentional dysfunction since we hear similar complaints from other districts. In most places there is little support and admin wins.

Why do so many teachers say UFT officials do not take their side but seem to take the side of admins?

UFT Splaining:
The UFT hierarchy does not view itself as teacher advocates but as mediators between the rank and file and school, district and central administration. For them to say they are working behind the scenes means they are negotiating -- but are they making minimal demands like the fact that almost the entire staff of CPE1 came under investigations that led nowhere and 3020a charges against teacher leaders makes Garg unacceptable as principal and the UFT must say that privately and publicly.

DOE communications to parents of CPE1 and to the activists show that they are not looking to remove Garg - which is not acceptable. (The DOE is offering "instructional support." Like master teachers in progressive ed need more PD.)

In fact, Jonathan Halabi helped parents write the reso rejected by the DA and the Ex Bd and sent it to Leroy Barr saying that everything in that reso is negotiable except for return of teachers and Garg must go -- he got no response.

In fact the UFT will never call for a principal removal due to CSA being an ally -- that's like Trump allying with ISIS.

Our reps on ex bd must continue to pound this point.

UFT passivity in face of massive assault on teachers = complicity.

James Eterno touches on this at the ICE blog where he reports on the end of the Jahoda reign at Townsend Harris HS

At the April Delegate Assembly, the UFT refused to support a resolution
raised by the elected Delegate from CPE 1calling in part for the Union
to work to remove Principal Garg from that school. The Union believes
that back channel communication with the DOE is the best way to go. UFT
Secretary Howie Schoor in speaking against the CPE 1 resolution said
that once we pass a resolution calling for the principal to be removed,
it stops all communication with the Board of Ed. That strategy is
questionable after both the Delegate and Chapter Leader from CPE 1 have
been removed from the school. Directly going after school union
representatives is not acceptable...

Watch the UFT take credit when in fact they should have been going after Jahoda after she gave Bronx HS CL Peter Lamphere 2 U ratings and wiped out the math dept.
The UFT had years to
hound the DOE on leaving her out there but did nothing. Then put her in THHS? Wasted almost a full academic year?

The DOE can do that because UFT allows
them to without repercussions. If some process was in place - checks and balances on who gets appointed, principals like Garg would never
have been able to set foot in CPE 1 in the first place.

The UFT leadership plays the dangerous game of offering up bogus and superficial support.

Actor Ernie de Silva, a former 4th grade student (class of 81-82) returns to NYC from California with his new show, Smoke, a follow-up to Heavy Light the Weight of a Flame
which I wrote about in the past.
Heavy... was the first of a trilogy and we are finally getting to see the next stage.

My comment after the first show was that every teacher should see it:

I've been telling teachers that this is a special show for them. How
Ernie was disparaged for reading too much and told his fate was drugs.
How he lost 8 of his friends to aids, drugs and murder by the time he
was 17. I feel this show lays lies to so much of the ed deform crap -
Ernie was a good student yet still had to go through so much shit.
Unless we as a society figure out how to help tackle the shit kids have
to go through we will be pedaling backwards.

Ernie is performing Smoke at the One Festival at Teatro Circulo
64 East 4th Street
New York, NY 10003

If you missed Ernie's earlier play, he is reprising Heavy Light the Weight of a Flame Wed April 26, 2017 at 8PM at a different theater on the lower east side - Latea, 107 Suffolk St. 2nd Floor. I'm going to try to make this one too.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Is the DOE our own version of United Airlines? A teacher sneezes the wrong way and - boom - 3020a. I got some hints at the possible charges against CPE1 chapter leader and they are laughable. In the meantime, below is a list of regs principal Monika Garg has violated. The list was turned over to the chancellor's cabinet in a meeting with some parents and teachers last Friday - CPE 1 Parents Meet With DOE Officials at Tweed.

At the meeting the parents repeatedly asked for even one reason Garg should be principal and there was no response.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

My final column on A Chorus Line. The mirrors are tucked away (they must be distorted because as I was carrying them they made me look so fat) and we have a good deal of the set for the next show, Neil Simon's Rumors, up already. And next Saturday is the first read through of this summer's Producers.

Memo from the RTC: How Many Chorus Line Members Can You Fit
on the Head of a Pin?

By Norm Scott

For someone who didn’t care for A Chorus Line when I first
saw the original on Broadway, I keep asking myself why I liked the Rockaway
Theatre Company production so much better. Of course the acting, singing and
most importantly, the dancing is professional level – that’s a given at the
RTC. But I also think it is the intimacy of the Post theater compared to big
Broadway houses where you don’t get to see the actors tell their stories up
close.

Anyway, I went back to tape the final show on Saturday
night, this time from a somewhat precarious perch sitting atop the sound booth,
but oh what a view. I figured the cast might be a bit tired after doing a matinee
but this performance was as top notch as the previous three I had seen.

Catherine Leib as Cassie doing her final dip

Last week I went through as many of the vast cast as I could
before running out of my allotted word count and want to continue in this final
column on the show. Bay Ridge’s John Panepinto (Greg), who brings his signing,
dancing and acting chops to almost every show at the RTC, makes a distinct
impression with a funky costume and a noticeable dialect. Erech Holder-Hetmeyer
(Ritchie), a Murrow HS grad a few years ago who debuted at the RTC last year in
La Cage as the whip bearing Cagelle, is fast becoming an RTC favorite as he
brings a 4th dimension to acting, singing and amazing dancing with
his athleticism. Erech and John will be joining the cast of The Producers this
summer and John is also playing a major role in the upcoming Rumors opening May 19 and playing for
only two weekends.

Adding newcomers to the RTC to casts has become a staple and
renews the talent pool. Chloe Carlston (Maggie) adds a big voice while Avital
Asuleen (Sheila) captures the stage with her sassy performance. Nic Anthony
Calabro (Mike) came all the way from Westchester to perform in this street
smart role while Mai Odaira (Connie) came from even further away – Saitama,
Japan, the third Japanese native to work with the RTC. Ashley Ann Jones (Judy)
comes from Missouri (I think) and impresses in the first minute of the show
with her ditzy performance. Ensemble cast members playing the first dancers cut
at the beginning of the show (Dante Rei, Jessica Mintzes, Alex Stabiner,
Samantha Braga, Matt Leonen) joined backstage pit singers Jodee Timpone and
Steven Wagner to add voice to the dancers singing on stage.

At the very end of the show the entire stage lights up and
the audience breaks out into cheers, not realizing they are applauding RTC
lighting guru Andrew Woodbridge. Managing all the sound coming from all the
remote mics over the past year has been local resident Daniel Fay who is a
major find for the RTC. He works with RTC jack of all trades Rich Louis-Pierre who
also plays bass in the band. Rich is one of the major architects of the RTC
experience. As usual, Producer Susan Jasper delivers what actors and directors
need in her very special way.

Susan also delivered the news to me on Saturday night that I
was playing the judge in the Producers this summer. “Do you think you can
manage four lines,” she said? I better start studying now. And once again,
thanks to Directors Susan Corning and David Risley, musical director Jeff
Arzberger and choreographer Nicola DePierro Nellen for bringing this great show
to Rockaway.

The cast party began soon after the show ended Saturday
night with great food. Antonio Oliveri, veteran actor at the RTC at the tender
age of 20, who played Al in the show and did that great duet with Gabby
Mangano, set up is DJ kit on stage and all those “tired” dancers despite doing
two shows that day were still going when I left the theater at 1 AM.

The last word: Congratulations to one of RTC’s stellar
performers Renee Steadman on her April 10 wedding, the afternoon after the show
closed, an event many of the RTC company attended – those that could still
stand up. Also congrats to her mom Denise Eversley, who put up with my dancing
with her in La Cage and her sister Jannicke Steadman. The entire family will be
in the cast of The Producers this summer.

When Norm is not practicing his 4 lines so Susan doesn’t
yell at him, he blogs at ednotesonline.com.

Friday, April 14, 2017

CPE1 Update:
Parent and teacher reps met for hours yesterday with the Chancellor's "team" which included Phil Weinberg, Laura Feijoo, Louis Herrera, Yolanda Torres. A group of supporters sat on the steps of Tweed as a show of support. A 120 page binder listing Garg transgressions, including violating numerous chancellor regs, was handed over.

Below is my column this week, a brief attempt to explain the CPE1 situation to the Rockaway community in a nutshell.

Parents support UFT Chapter leader Marilyn Martinez at her hearing. When
I was a young teacher dreaming about teaching in a child-centered
progressive school (which I never got to do), the model school set up in
East Harlem (District 4) in the mid-1970s by Debbie Meier, one of the
gods of teaching in this country for 50 years, was a magnet for teachers
and parents looking for alternative ways of working with kids that were
far from the mainstream. Central Park East (CPE) became a nationwide
model, offering elementary school children a private school model of
education and making it available to parents who did not have the means
to send their kids to elite schools. A major component of such education
in Debbie’s vision was a non-segregated and diverse population that
would be roughly one third black, Latino and white in a neighborhood
where such an option was not available. Call it the one of the early
concepts of choice within a public school system which is so pushed by
the charter school lobby. Debbie won a McArthur Genius Award for her
ground breaking work in New York and in Boston.

The CPE model was the furthest thing from today’s no excuses,
test-driven, anti-union, rigid, corporate as opposed to student-driven
charter factory floor concepts.

People from all over the nation came to study the practices in the
school, which involved student choices in what they would learn, in
addition to a wide degree of latitude for teachers; a democratically run
school where major decisions on hiring and practices were decided
jointly by teachers and administrators with a lot of parent input.
Principals sometimes referred to themselves as “head teachers.” The
closest model in Brooklyn is the Brooklyn New School in Park Slope.

The original CPE, now known as CPE1, was replicated into a CPE 2 and
then a CPE middle and high school, though over the time the practices
diverged in the different schools. CPE1 was the school that retained
many of the original constructs, one of which is that testing is the
least important aspect of a rich education in an elementary school
especially since our youngest children grow at different rates
intellectually and emotionally and branding kids based on test scores at
such an early age is debilitating. Thus most parents who choose to send
their kids – in fact, fight to send their kids – to the few progressive
public schools there are have been opting out of taking tests once they
became the measure of success and drowned out all the other factors of
what makes for a good school and a good education.

In the past year and a half, CPE1 progressive education, the teaching
staff and the majority of parents have come under attack by the
Department of Education with the installation of a principal, Monika
Garg, who has no experience in progressive education, was a high school
administrator with little or no knowledge of how elementary schools
work, but especially of how CPE1 has operated through its history. Garg
has gone after experienced and tenured teachers which culminated in the
recent removal of chapter leader Marilyn Martinez, which has galvanized
an already active parent group that has been fighting back against Garg
and the DOE. At Martinez’ hearings, between 50 and 100 parents showed up
in support. Last week, after a massively attended School Leadership
Team (SLT) meeting that attracted over a hundred people, including State
Senator Bill Perkins and former City Councilman Robert Jackson, the
parents read a statement calling on Garg to resign.

Garg read her own statement refusing to resign saying that she
answers only to her superiors, the Superintendent Alexander Estrella and
Chancellor Farina. In our system the people running schools do not have
to answer to the stakeholders – the parents, teachers, or the general
community. Since the mayor was given control over the schools in this
city in 2002, the arrogance of whoever is running the system, no matter
what party, has only grown worse.

After the SLT meeting, parents at CPE1 were fed up enough to refuse
to leave the auditorium and engaged in a sleep-in, not emerging until 9
a.m. the next morning. I was there to cover the story for my blog and
The Wave, along with the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, WCBS, WNBC, The
Daily News and other press.
I have been the only one embedded with the parents and teachers since I first met with them a year ago.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Parent leaders of CPE1 are asking anyone available today at 10:45 to come to Tweed to support the parents and teachers before they go in for the meeting.

April 6: Massive police presence at rally

Did de Blasio tell Farina to get a meeting with parents and teachers of CPE1? Hell yes. I heard one very liberal parent say last Friday that she would rather vote for a Republican than de Blasio unless the CPE1 situation was resolved.

After over a year of agitating at PEP meetings, rallies at Tweed and organizing the parents and community to call for the removal of Monika Garg, it took the sit-in at the auditorium following an SLT meeting last Thursday/Friday overnight and a phone call from a parent raising the issue with de Blasio on the Brian Lehrer show to get the DOE to invite parents and teachers (two of each) to Tweed today for an 11 AM meeting.

While one of the teachers should be Chapter Leader Marilyn Martinez, still banned from the school until the outcome of her hearing, the DOE is apparently pushing back on allowing her into Tweed. The story is that the UFT supposedly tried to get permission and at this point has not been successful.

This is clearly a show by the DOE to give some cover to de Blasio - lame duck Farina is irrelevant at this point - and we have seen the focus shifted to de Blasio whose base is being undermined by stories like this. While he doesn't face much of a challenge, the number of votes he gets make a difference and given the Trump win, anything is possible. If my local city councilman, Republican Erich Ulrich, had run I would have voted for him, that is how annoyed I am at deB over ed policies.

Now people are not going in with their eyes closed and understand this is a PR stunt of sorts and that the idea that Garg will be gone is not in the DOE game plan. The hostility is at such a high pitch, that there is no bridging the gap. How can teachers who have been under attack work under Garg? How can parents whose children have been called in and questioned in attempts to "get" something on their teachers without parent permission trust Garg?

So the outcome will be a promise to monitor the situation, etc, etc and to try to split the parents and make the most militant look unreasonable. Now we do know that about a dozen parents and some teachers support Garg and the DOE is hoping to woo people over to that position and give those supporters a wedge. To me that is what this meeting is about. Stall until Garg can get a new batch of parents into the school to try to shift the balance of power -- and she has the ability to do that by manipulating the admission process. (I'll have more on how admission to CPE1 has worked over the years -- CPE 1 had the biggest waiting list per student of any school in the city according to some parents - before Garg, that is.

What next for parents? More sit-ins, boycotts, hunger strikes? Everything is on the table.

UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.